It is ATB Riva Calzoni's comeback to the nuclear market. More specifically to making casks, that is, the steel containers used to transport spent fuel from nuclear power plants. Such comeback required further developing the productive capacities of the mechanical department of the Roncadelle facilities. To this end, Sergio Trombini, ATBRC President, budgeted a crucial investment to equip Building 5 with a new machinery: a Pama Speedram 3 boring machine, that will be working together with its 'sister', the Speedram 2.
'We started to consider this investment some years ago, analysing the options from the point of view of the nuclear market', explains Gabriele Campigotto, Production Manager of ATB Riva Calzoni. 'When we received new job orders, we had to face a significant increase in the overall workload. Given these conditions, we need to be able to do all processed required in house'. With updated and upgraded technologies available at the plant, many stages along the production chain are standardised, which is highly advantageous and results in versatility and speed bringing benefits to all the business units. 'With the Pama boring machine we can work not only with casks but also with large hydro-mechanical equipment', adds Campigotto. The machine is also an excellent 'business card' to show potential clients that are interested in ATB Riva Calzoni products. 'We finally decided on Pama after comparing several major Italian and European suppliers', adds the Production Manager. 'But our priority was to give continuity to the presence of the brand within the department, in which we have been using a Pama Speedram 2 for some years now'. Speedram 3 is a horizontal boring machine with moveable mounting, designed to the highest precision and power standards, and it is a very efficient machining solution for medium- to large-sized components.
This low-wear rate machine ensures maximum performance over time; integral hydrostatic guides help damping serious vibration in all axes. Omar Signorelli from Pama S.p.A. explains that 'the Speedram series are mainly built in a modular manner. In practice, they feature different configurations based on the client's requirement. For instance, for ATBRC, the length of the axes were customised, like the personalised chosen accessories to equip the machine. Everything can be fitted and/or removed whenever automatically'.
The workload projections for the next couple of years as well as 'the demands of the market call for increasingly higher capacity from you', adds Signorelli. 'For you we built a hydrostatic with a loading capacity of 160 t because the loads you handle are significantly heavy. Besides, we take advantage of digitization, in relation to Industry 4.0, with super-fast response times'. Before operation, the new Speedram 3 was integrated to Pama's logistic system so that the reports containing all the yield data of the machine could be retrieve in real time.
